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Friday, September 16, 2011

EngBishCorp Calls for Return to Meatless Fridays

In a statement issued earlier this month, the bishops said it was important that followers of the Church were united in a common, identifiable act of Friday penance because "Lord knows, they sure don't go to Mass every week, heh, heh, heh... Oh wait...the virtue of penitence is best acquired as part of a common resolve and common witness" yeah yeah, that's it....

Not even sure what the rule is in Canada but our family eats fish or no meat on Fridays. Though today we had Fettucine Alfredo with giant shrimp. Hard to say that was a penance.Maybe eating with my children after a week of homeschooling them is a penance. Yeah, yeah, that's it...

Penance is rarely something painful. After confession the priest does not say "Now walk around with rocks in your shoes." He tells the penitent to say a certain number of prayers or to ponder a scriptural passage. The point of penance is the observation, not discomfort.

In Canada, the minimum requirements are to abstain from all food and drink save water and medicine for an hour before Communion, to do penance on most Fridays, to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent and to abstain from meat and fast (which means to eat no more than one and two collations) on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

...and one of the worst aspects of the liturgical and disciplinary changes of the post-Asteroid Church has been the de facto abolition of serious penances especially the Eucharistic fast. In the new dispensation, in order to break the fast you pretty much have to bring a bag of chips and eat it in the pew. It's not really a rule if it's impossible to break, is it?

Many Trads. will at least observe the three hour rule and many continue the traditional practice of fasting from midnight. But we do these things in a spirit of sadness and loss, since they are mere voluntary acts and have been abolished and largely forgotten in the larger Catholic world.

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